


Learning the Cost

by randi2204



Series: Honeymoon Trail [6]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Crossdressing, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-13
Updated: 2012-06-13
Packaged: 2017-11-07 16:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra's plan has led Chris down this path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning the Cost

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: They all belong to MGM, Mirisch and Trilogy, not me. Woes.

The whole time he was recovering from that bullet in his side, Chris had only two thoughts fighting for space in his head: _how could I have been so blind?_ and _how am I gonna find her?_

 

All the while he was tossing in fever, weak as a kitten, ornery as a bear, Vin searched.  He was gone for longer and longer each time, until Chris started to worry, way down deep in his soul, that he might not come back at all – that that bitch would take him, too… or that he’d decide that he, Chris, wasn’t worth all this effort and just keep on riding.

 

He _knew_ that wouldn’t happen, that Vin would have to be dead if he didn’t come back to at least tell Chris what he’d discovered, but he’d been so _wrong_ about Ella that it was easy to imagine that the Vin he knew wasn’t the _real_ Vin.

 

Vin did come back, did tell Chris what little he discovered, even if it wasn’t what Chris wanted to hear.  As the days and weeks and eventually months passed, he started to think that maybe he wouldn’t find her, that he’d be waiting endlessly for her next move, the next thing she did that stole someone away from him.   That fear – because that’s what it was, pure and simple, fear that he’d never get his revenge, that Ella would get away with killing his wife and child, with killing _him_ in all the ways that mattered – sent him searching out bottles to kill instead, made him foul-tempered and nasty and set to push the others away as far as he could.

 

Then Ezra had shared his plan.

 

All he could see was that it would _work_.  Ezra was right – nothing would draw that crazy woman out of whatever hole she was hiding in faster than the rumor that he had married again.  Ezra had even planned around his refusal to ever get married again by making _sure_ it would be a sham, offering himself in the guise of the sister he didn’t have, and saying with a laugh that acting like a woman would be easy – he’d done it before, after all.

 

And that burning desire for revenge that had filled him for three lonely years, that had redoubled the moment Ella had bragged about what she’d done for him had risen up once more, had made him agree to Ezra’s plan.

 

Vin and Buck had tried to talk him out of it, but Chris hadn’t been swayed.  _Gonna get that bitch_ was all he said in response to their arguments, until Vin had walked away and Buck had gone quiet, shaking his head.

 

It was only after he and Ezra had left town, the plan laid out and unchangeable as Chris’s mind, that the doubts had started, the little flashes of the hurt that was to come, wearing away at his resolve until the only thing holding him to the plan was the knowledge that this would finish it.  Ella would find them, lured by Ezra’s disguise as Mrs. Larabee, the position she’d killed to get, and then… that would be the end of it.  _Maybe,_ Chris thought, _the end of everything._

 

And it wasn’t until he found himself falling into bed with Ezra that he realized that things had changed.

 

Their act wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to fool most everyone, because people didn’t expect two men on a honeymoon trip.  Sometimes, Chris wondered if it was good enough that they were fooling themselves.

 

That day had started the same as every other one of recent, waking late with his limbs twined with Ezra’s in the soft bed and loath to disentangle himself.  He did, though, and prodded Ezra awake, grinning with wicked glee all the while.

 

They promenaded about town, on _business_ – which was as much truth as not, as Chris was looking at stock for the ranch he’d started thinking about again.  What Ezra was looking at, Chris couldn’t have said, because aside from whispered acid comments on the horse traders in town, he didn’t say much.

 

It was late in the afternoon when they returned to the hotel.  “Goin’ to the train station,” he told Ezra, “see if any of the others…” _Bothered to come_ , he thought but couldn’t quite force the words out.

 

Ezra nodded and released his arm.  “I’m positive they’ll be there,” he said in the soft false voice he’d adopted.

 

Chris watched Ezra’s back as he made his way up the stairs, dress swishing softly about him as he moved, and thought about following him up.  But it was only a thought, then he caught himself and turned to go.  As he passed through the foyer, his glance passed over a woman in a pale grey dress, fashionable hat with white feathers perched on her dark hair.  Her back was to him as she bent over the register.

 

He was out the door and down the street before he realized that the clerk hadn’t been at the desk, that the woman had been looking for someone’s room… and then the woman he’d seen meshed with memory.  _Ella!_

 

He managed not to draw too much attention to himself, managed not to run until he was on their floor of the hotel.  The door to their room stood open, and as he pulled himself to a stop just outside, Ella’s strident voice drifted out, and he heard the heart-stoppingly familiar sound of a gun being cocked.

 

“Miz Gaines,” Ezra said, and Chris had expected him to use _his_ voice, but it was still that not-quite-real tone, surprising him.  “I’ve been expectin’ you.”  He head the rustle of skirts, couldn’t tell if it was Ezra or Ella moving, and stepped inside.  His pistol was in his hand, though he couldn’t remember drawing it.

 

Ezra and Ella faced each other, Ezra standing by the writing desk, Ella with a gun in her hand, pointed at Ezra, ready to fire.  Her eyes darted to him as he filled the doorway, wide and mad.

 

“Chris?” Ella’s voice grated on his ear, and he gritted his teeth, wondering how he’d ever thought it a pleasant sound.  “Why are you with… this… this _woman_ … she’s not your wife, I am!”

 

“You’re no such thing, Ella,” he said low.  “You never have been.”

 

“Chris!” She stared at him, pleading, but her aim never wavered.  “You don’t mean that!  Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you!”

 

“I’m more of a wife to him than you ever have been,” Ezra said, this time in _his_ voice, unmistakably male despite the paint on his face, the corset and petticoats and skirts he wore.

 

Ella let out a noise of disbelief, something that could have been his name again, and squeezed the trigger on her gun.  Cursing himself, Chris fired his own, a second too late.

 

Ella fell back, clutching her arm and wailing as she sank to the floor, but under it all, he still heard Ezra’s indrawn breath, sharp and pained.  When Chris turned to him, his chest filled with horror at the sight of blood.  Blood poured down the front of the dress, turning it an ugly, ugly color, dripping from the hole the bullet had made.

 

“Chris…” Ezra whispered, face going ghastly white.  He dropped his derringer, his hand wavering in the air, reaching for him.

 

Somehow he got Ezra down on the floor, was searching for some way to open that damned dress without doing him more harm when he heard another voice call his name.

 

After that, it was a blur until Nathan ordered him out, and an endless wait filled with uncertainty and fear and recriminations until Vin ordered him back in.

 

And now he sat, his fingers tight around Ezra’s lax hand, staring at his too-pale face, clammy with sweat, at the blood-stained bandage around his middle.  Nathan hadn’t said the words, but it was plain he wasn’t sure Ezra would last the night.

 

Chris stroked his thumb over the backs of Ezra’s fingers, silently asking him to hold on.

 

All this time he’d been afraid of _not_ finding Ella.  How wrong he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a prompt at [mag7daybook](http://mag7daybook.dreamwidth.org/) at Dreamwidth. The prompt was: Chris, OW, afraid of finding Ella - Afraid of not finding Ella.


End file.
